New Post
Search
Help[Opinions] Re: Ophelia and Gillian
in reply to a message by Caroline
I love Gillian. Love it, love it, love it. This is one of those cases where the spelling makes all the difference to me; I don't find Jillian appealing at all, but Gillian, and I pronounce them the same, is lovely. I think Jill is avoidable if both you and Gillian are committed to avoiding it. I don't want to think there's any such thing as an unavoidable nickname.
I loathe Ophelia. For realz. If I could hurl lightning bolts from atop some name Olympus somewhere, Ophelia would have been burned to cinders long ago. I hate everything about it from the sound, to the Shakespearean character, to what I feel Ophelia has come to represent collective conscious. I'm lazy, and I've hurt my wrist, so I'm going to cheat and copy my Ophelia thoughts from a different post:
- It reminds me of "oaf" and "offal."
- The "I feel ya" thing and the "necrophilia" thing...whether you pronounce it with 3 or 4 syllables, there's a vile play on words just waiting to be discovered.
- The character from Hamlet, a crap association. Even if it doesn't bother you, it's one pretty much everybody is aware of. Which brings me to the biggest reason I hate it...
- Because the character from Hamlet is so wedded to the name, Ophelia is used over and over again by people and organizations working with "girls in crisis." Ophelia Project? Relational Aggression Disorder in girls. Ophelia's Place? Eating disorders. Reviving Ophelia? The impact on adolescent girls of consumerism and the media pressure to conform to unrealistic body images. It's a name often picked by people who want to evoke some kind of tragic imagery: A quick Google search pulls up a bajillion tear-filled blogs with Ophelia in the title, yet another Ophelia Project (this one about famous female authors and poets who have committed suicide), and even a California radio DJ named "Ophelia Necro" who plays "murder ballads and suicide dirges." Ick.
I can't think of any other name so well loved by namenerds that is so steeped in bad juju.
/laziness
Plus, I think it's pretentious. ;)
I loathe Ophelia. For realz. If I could hurl lightning bolts from atop some name Olympus somewhere, Ophelia would have been burned to cinders long ago. I hate everything about it from the sound, to the Shakespearean character, to what I feel Ophelia has come to represent collective conscious. I'm lazy, and I've hurt my wrist, so I'm going to cheat and copy my Ophelia thoughts from a different post:
- It reminds me of "oaf" and "offal."
- The "I feel ya" thing and the "necrophilia" thing...whether you pronounce it with 3 or 4 syllables, there's a vile play on words just waiting to be discovered.
- The character from Hamlet, a crap association. Even if it doesn't bother you, it's one pretty much everybody is aware of. Which brings me to the biggest reason I hate it...
- Because the character from Hamlet is so wedded to the name, Ophelia is used over and over again by people and organizations working with "girls in crisis." Ophelia Project? Relational Aggression Disorder in girls. Ophelia's Place? Eating disorders. Reviving Ophelia? The impact on adolescent girls of consumerism and the media pressure to conform to unrealistic body images. It's a name often picked by people who want to evoke some kind of tragic imagery: A quick Google search pulls up a bajillion tear-filled blogs with Ophelia in the title, yet another Ophelia Project (this one about famous female authors and poets who have committed suicide), and even a California radio DJ named "Ophelia Necro" who plays "murder ballads and suicide dirges." Ick.
I can't think of any other name so well loved by namenerds that is so steeped in bad juju.
/laziness
Plus, I think it's pretentious. ;)
This message was edited 3/31/2012, 2:41 PM
Archived Thread - replies disabled
1